Whole30 & Your Health with Melissa Hartwig

Summary: Food truly is medicine. Without proper nutrition, it's extremely difficult to shift the needle on your health and wellness.

Air Date: 4/11/17

Duration: 22:46

Host: Dr. Taz

Guest Bio: Melissa Hartwig, Certified Sports Nutritionist

Melissa Hartwig is a Certified Sports Nutritionist who specializes in helping people change their relationship with food and create life-long, healthy habits. She is the co-creator of the Whole30 program, the New York Times bestselling author of The Whole30, It Starts With Food, Food Freedom Forever, and The Whole30 Cookbook.

Melissa has been featured by Dr. Oz, Today Show, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Details, Shape, Outside, and SELF. Melissa has presented more than 150 health and nutrition seminars worldwide and provides support to more than 2 million people a month through the Whole30 (whole30.com) website.

Food truly is medicine. Without proper nutrition, it's extremely difficult to shift the needle on your health and wellness.

What began as an experiment to address rheumatoid arthritis, the Whole30 Program is now a widely popular and successful plan to halt the exhausting cycle of yo-yo dieting and the resulting stress, weight gain, uncontrollable cravings, and a myriad of health complaints.

Co-creator, Melissa Hartwig, Certified Sports Nutritionist, explains that the approach is different from other anti-inflammatory diets (i.e. Paleo, Mediterranean), in that it has a very specific purpose: addressing your health, habits and emotional relationship with food. So, not just the physical factors, but also emotional triggers, cravings, and reasons behind the food choices you make.

For instance, you're not allowed to "recreate" junk/comfort foods with technically compliant Whole30 ingredients. You need to identify why you select those foods and adjust your mindset. Your brain doesn't know the difference between homemade potato chips cooked in avocado oil or regular potato chips you'd find at the grocery store. At the end of the day, a chip is a chip.

The plan supports change from the inside-out. Your taste buds will shift so that you actually crave healthy foods and have no taste for unhealthy ones.

When you're struggling, you are able to connect with other participants and experts via the Whole30 community. This helps you avoid soothing yourself with your go-to comfort foods.

Melissa wants individuals to keep in mind that this plan is an "eliminate and reintroduce" approach. You may not have to say goodbye to some foods forever. The diet allows you to discover how certain foods work for YOU, so you can decide which foods are worth it.

Listen in as Melissa joins Dr. Taz to share more about the history and success of Whole30, as well as what's on the horizon.